Search

Emily Savage

This is the first installment of our new series, Maximum Consumption, an unseasoned look at the increasingly overlapping fields of music and culinary arts. So if you're in a band and looking to talk chop, or a chef that moonlights as an acoustic guitar-playing busker, we'd like to talk to you.

An enticing little book landed on my desk last week. It's part cookbook, part music journalism, part rock opus, and hell, part coffee table book. The Recipe Project (subhead "A Delectable Extravaganza of Food and Music) is a concept spearheaded by New York-based gypsy-klezmer act One Ring Zero. The band's co-founders, Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp, created songs using the recipes of well-known chefs (Mario Batali, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Chris Cosentino) as the word-for-word lyrics. The meals themselves served as musical influence; each recipe inspired a different sound.

Something strange popped up on an unassuming tree near the Guardian offices in Poterero Hill earlier this week. Walk up Mississippi Street, in between Mariposa and 18th Streets, and you will find a white sheet of paper taped to a trunk with neon green electrical tape. The sign warns bystanders of an attempt at time travel.

The picture is pasted here. I've also taken the liberty of typing it out for you.Read more »

"You know how you can think back to that one night? That punk show or cool house party or the first time you saw Björk, and it's just, the night you'll never forget? I want to do that for other people. I want to make lasting memories," he says from his perch in Four Barrel Coffee as he grabs Rosamunde french fries from his bag.Read more »

Ah, Golden Gate Park on a crisp, sunny Sunday morning. Well, afternoon. There's nothing else like it. When I finally made my way out to Outside Lands, the highly recognizable vocal stylings of tUnE-yArDs were piping through the brush and bramble. Sweaty, shirtless men – fried to a near-crisp – rain danced far back from the Sutro Stage. And those free-jazzing saxophonists that I mentioned in the pre-festival rundown were indeed beside Merrill Garbus.

Next up, I high-tailed it to foodlands, where I shared gourmet tator tots from Q and later, a falafel snow cone – not as odd as it sounds – from Straw. As we munched, I caught a few songs by the legendary Mavis Staples, but apparently missed it when Arcade Fire singer Winn Butler came out to join Staples in a cover of “The Weight.”

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free festival held annually in Golden Gate Park, began trickling out its 2011 lineup early this week. To give eager fans a (small) thrill, instead of simply announcing the bands, the festival's site is hosting a series of song medleys through Soundcloud. Listen to the songs, and you will discover the artists (or you can just look at the scrolling box at the top of the page). While more acts will be announced in the coming days as the festival nears – the dates are Sept. 30, Oct. Read more »

MUSIC Outside Lands has stepped up its game in its fourth year. The mix of bands this time around is truly inspired — if a bit pilfered from old lineups at other fests like Treasure Island. No matter, it's riding high in 2011.

This was not always the case. Last year, the Golden Gate Park festival seemed lackluster in the music department; the lineup wasn't as solid as it had been previously, and it lacked that one giant-but-dependably-awesome act like Radiohead (or this year's Arcade Fire). In the process, it may have lost a festival-goer or two.Read more »

MUSIC Remember the raw, heart-thumping heat of the Jukebox Jamboree in John Waters' 1990 cult classic Cry-Baby? A steamy musician (Johnny Depp) strums and snarls towards a crowd of excited nogoodniks. There was a similar scene a few Saturdays back at a garage rock show in Oakland, thanks largely to Cody S. Blanchard. He's a Clam (of local trio Shannon and the Clams) but he also moonlights as King Lollipop, a John Waters-esque character with highwater pants and a tin can tied atop his head.Read more »

In the Wed/3 Guardian you can read the tale of Total Trash Fest 3, and what exactly it takes to be a trash band. Here I present another example of the Total Trash type: Moonhearts.

The band includes vocalist-bassist Mikal Cronin, who also has a solo album out — he'll play two Trash Fest sets Sunday, August 28 (one with Moonhearts in the afternoon, and later that night by himself). On top of that, he occasionally tours with his friend, local garage rock wizard Ty Segall, who is in Traditional Fools, also set to play Total Trash. It's a freaky web those trash types weave.

"We've played with a lot of those bands [in the fest] before," Cronin says, adding with a laugh, “I guess we're pretty trashy, but we try to keep it under control."